Mike Babayan was in a hookah lounge when he heard the explosion on Saturday night. Dubai, a city marketed as one of the safest on Earth, had been targeted by Iranian missiles. Emergency messages urged residents to take shelter, but within a minute, Babayan said, partygoers had returned to their shisha pipes and food.
Babayan, a 23-year-old Los Angeles native who moved to Dubai in 2020 to work in finance, later relocated from his home in the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, to a residence farther from the city centre. There, explosions rang out every 20 to 30 minutes, yet locals carried on as if nothing was happening. “Everyone is just having coffees, walking around like there’s no care in the world,” he told followers on TikTok, where he documents his life as a day-trader and influencer to nearly 150,000 people.
Britain’s Will Bailey, a travel influencer with almost 500,000 followers, watched missiles fall from a beach club. The DJ kept playing as he and others filmed the nearby Fairmont The Palm hotel engulfed in smoke. One visiting influencer posted from the deck of a yacht party. Amid the chaos, Babayan sought to counter misinformation, telling his audience that an AI-generated clip of the Burj Khalifa burning was fake. He insisted a missile strike was less likely than being robbed in London or Los Angeles, noting he could still walk around at night wearing his $60,000 watch undisturbed.
The tone struck some as tone-deaf. A British entrepreneur in Dubai complained on social media that the conflict had grounded her flight, forcing her to cancel meetings and events. The video was later deleted. Babayan acknowledged the perception problem: “Influencers give the impression that they are more douchey in the way they portray life. That does piss people off, and now they’re saying that [the chaos] is well deserved.”
Dr Sreya Mitra, an associate professor of mass communication at the American University of Sharjah, said Indian influencers in Dubai were working to reassure relatives back home amid a “credibility crisis” in Indian television news. “They’ll say, ‘Hey, it’s 2am and I’m here in the Ramadan market or downtown Dubai, and it’s safe,’” she said.
Iran said its attacks were retaliation for US-Israeli strikes that have killed more than 700 Iranians, including 168 at a girls’ elementary school, according to Iranian state media. The UAE reported three deaths and 68 injuries since the war began, and said it had intercepted or destroyed most of the missiles and drones. Damage was reported at the Fairmont hotel and at airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
